


Bath and Bed

by CadetDru



Series: Heartbroken [3]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s06e18 Milagro, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, milagro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 03:50:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3275609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CadetDru/pseuds/CadetDru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully goes home after Milagro.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bath and Bed

Scully was still at Mulder's apartment, still refusing to go to the hospital to get checked out. She was still in shock, she probably would keep shaking like an aspen leaf for a while to come. There was nothing medically wrong with her, nothing that could be fixed in the emergency room. 

"I have to go home," Scully said. 

"Are you okay to drive?" Mulder asked, his concerned look too intense. 

Scully inventoried her own body, her mental state. "No," she said as honestly as she could. 

"Stay here then," Mulder said.

"I can't," she said. Each word she had to say brought back the feeling of her heart being wrenched out of her chest. If being emotionally honest with Mulder would keep making her feel that way, she had to leave his presence as soon as possible. He was so earnest and concerned. The same way he always was, the same way she was when he was in danger. "Will you drop me off?" she asked, offering a compromise. 

"I'll pick you up tomorrow, bring you coffee, we'll come back here and you'll take your car... A long and productive morning."

"It's a date," she said.

From the sudden subtle change to his expression, he was thinking of what Padgett said. She was already in love. She was working against her own self interest because of him, in a dozen tiny ways. She had left no room for her own life, her own interests. 

"Let's go." He didn't say anything about her clothes, probably because he didn't think of them. She thought of them deliberately, leaving their blood-stained mess to be dealt with another time. Padgett was right, she spent more time at Mulder's than at her own apartment. It only made sense to leave clothes there. 

She slipped on her high heels, having to notice the contrast with the sweat pants. She had sneakers in the trunk of her car, her own change of clothes. She could get them, change in his apartment. That would mean leaving and coming back and leaving again. She just needed to go. She nearly stumbled walking in them, despite years of practice, despite running them time and again. 

She sat in Mulder's car, in the passenger seat as always. He was clenching the steering wheel at ten and two, not saying a word until they came to her place. "Are you sure you don't want me to stay?" he said.

She weighed the possibilities. She didn't want to show more weakness in front of him. She also didn't want him going back to that place either. He'd been a target just as much as she was. He was the man she loved, the antagonist to the hero of someone else's tale. He wasn't the hero of her story; she refused to be his sidekick, the girl at his side. He was hers, more than she was his. She knew it was a lie. The X-files were his, just as she was. He had all the power in their relationship. 

"Sure. Come on in," she said, trying to be casual. 

"Take the couch. Watch TV."

"That was my plan," Mulder said.

"I know."

She took one of the Valiums she had had prescribed after one of the early cases she'd worked on with Mulder, and drew herself a bath. She'd showered at Mulder's, washed away the magical, miraculous blood that had taken the place of her own beating and bleeding heart. She needed to relax. Needed to soak her tense muscles and return to her own life, her own self. She submerged herself under the water before quickly surfacing. She didn't want to drown, didn't want to risk a second near-death experience of the day. She got up, toweled off, wrung her hair out with her shaking hands. There was no mark, nothing on her skin, through it. nothing showing any kind of injury. She was fine. She turned, looking over her shoulder at her tattoo. No other marks or blemishes. She put the T-shirt back on. It smelled fresh and clean, with an overlay of her own fear. She almost wanted something worn, something that would smell of another, of something besides her own fear and the blood that lingered in her nose still. 

She fell into bed, the Valium doing its job. She was safe, Mulder was safe. She could hear the faint noise of the TV at the lowest possible volume. She didn't want him there to protect her, she wanted him there to protect himself. She wanted to believe in purification rituals so the ghosts and memories of all the terrible things that had happened there could go away. 

She tossed and turned before falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.


End file.
